Best Practice Guidelines for Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas

The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) TAPAS Group is in the process of revising the IUCN Best Practice Guidelines for Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas. During the IUCN World Conservation Congress last month in Jeju, South Korea, the TAPAS Group organized a workshop to solicit input on the Guidelines from the larger conservation community and different stakeholder groups. Based on suggestions and comments received, the editorial team has made further adjustments to the draft third edition of the guidelines, and identified additional contributors from outside the TAPAS Group membership.

The primary goal for the third edition of the Guidelines is to develop a substantially updated document incorporating new topics and emerging issues since the current edition was published in 2002.

To represent a significant level of collaborative efforts among TAPAS Group members while other contributors are also engaged, generating discussion, debates and consensus on important sustainability issues and challenges of tourism in protected areas.

To include best practices that reflect a balanced collection of global knowledge with respect to topics, ecosystems, organizations, stakeholder groups and world regions.

To provide a key reference and training guide for protected area managers with a succinct, organized summary of issues and good practices augmented by extensive information sources for further details on specific issues, topics and cases.

To facilitate proactive and strategic approaches to management, and by fostering critical thinking among protected area managers in the face of changing ecological, social and political environments, as well as emerging tourism demands.

Call for Technical Contributions

Tourism and protected areas professionals are invited to submit an expression of interest in the form of a 100-200 word abstract (as a MS Word document file). The abstract should identify the type and nature of your contribution in reference to the Proposed Table of Contents, and please attach any examples of previous writing/reports you have done in that area. Please send your expression of interest via email to: Leung[at]ncsu.edu by Friday, 16 November 2012. Based on the responses received the editorial team will make writing assignments and provide more details in term of length, style, and deadlines.